‘Woot’ Named Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year

The public has decided that the ultimate word of gaming celebration, "Woot!" should be Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year.

Visitors to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary website were invited to choose the Word of the Year from a list of 20 candidates such as "blamestorm," "hypocrite," and "quixotic." The list was comprised of the most frequently looked-up words at Merriam-Webster Online, as well as some of the most popular submissions to Merriam-Webster’s Open Dictionary, which operates Wiki-style.

The "vast majority" of voters chose "woot," which MWO defines as an interjection "expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word ‘yay’.":

This year’s winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community.

This doesn’t meant that "woot" will ever find its way into the print version of the Merriam-Webster dictionary, but it ups the odds a bit. Today "woot," tomorrow "pwnd"!